Tales from the Third Music Room
by sciathan file
Summary: A collection of drabbles and shorter one shots chronicling the lives and random antics of the zany inhabitants of the Third Music Room. Multiple pairings and genres.
1. Taboo, Perhaps, Milord?

**Tales from the Third Music Room**

**Title:** "Taboo, Perhaps, Milord?"

**Series:** Ouran High School Host Club

**Genre:** Humor

**Word Count:** 163

**Characters:** General Host Club

**Pairings:** None, or one-sided HaruhixTamaki…but aren't they all?

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** None.

**Taboo, Perhaps, Milord?**

Haruhi was wearing one of _his_ frilly dresses…perhaps it was the best birthday present anyone had every given Tamaki (and he did indeed launch into this matter in a long speech not intended for a drabble).

…Little did the errant King know that this act was spurred by a promise to reduce her debt and a thinly veiled reference to fatty tuna…

But Kyouya knew that such an act would be worth enough to his friend to make up for the small decrease in the club's profit margins.

…Indeed, the stream of blood pouring from his nose was proof of this.

The twins picked up on this immediately, _that_ look glinting in their eyes.

"How unsightly, milord."

"Such desiring of your daughter is a taboo, perhaps, milord?"

They wagged their fingers in perfect synchronization at him.

Despite the temptation of continuing to zealously admire Haruhi wearing a lacy, white sundress, Tamaki did not come out of the corner for a very long time.

**A/N:** This is the first piece I ever wrote for Ouran…but it was too short to post on its own, so I've decided to do a collection of drabbles. Also, because I want to see what people come up with, I suppose I will take requests for drabbles for a while. However, please not that I usually don't write slash…unless you have an awesome idea. Thanks for reading!


	2. Serfing

**Title:** "Serfing"

**Series:** Ouran High School Host Club

**Genre:** Humor

**Word Count:** 251

**Characters:** General Host Club

**Pairings:** None.

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** None.

**Serfing**

Haruhi never knew what she would find behind the door of Music Room 3.

It had become her daily ritual to walk up to the doors, stare at them as if she could see what strange ploy awaited her beyond them, sigh, and continue into the hands of the rich boys awaiting her (more literally than she liked, in fact).

Today Music Room 3 was adorned with marble veneer and statues of Michelangelo, Donatello, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, and Masaccio.

Haruhi sighed, seeing what Tamaki's imagination had come up with for today.

Confirming her suspicions, she came upon her fellow club members…all of them were dressed in Renaissance period costumes and looked liked the sons of noblemen.

Haruhi, however, thought they simply looked ridiculous.

This especially applied to Tamaki who was wearing a flashily embroidered purple (for that _was_ the color of royalty) and a hat with an overly large plume.

Who _knew_ what they had planned for her…

Suspiciously, rather than Tamaki's forceful shoving of her designated outfit into her hands, Kyouya stood holding it, a bemused expression on his face.

Warily, (for that was how Kyouya should be treated at all times…) she took it from him. Differing greatly from the rich fabrics and elaborate embroidery of the rest of the Host Club's outfits, her costume was made out of course, brownish fabric.

Kyouya smiled enigmatically, pushing his glasses up to the top of the bridge of his nose.

"Haruhi," he said in pleasantly measured tones, "We made you a peasant."


	3. Nice Compartments

**Title:** "Nice Compartments"

**Series:** Ouran High School Host Club

**Genre:** Introspective, romance if you care to view it that way

**Word Count:** 885

**Characters:** Mostly Haruhi's view on Mori, but appearances by all of the Host Club

**Pairings:** MorixHaruhi is you squint

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** Allusions to random details in volume 6 of the manga and one event in episode 17 of the anime. Nothing incredibly world altering.

**Nice Compartments**

Thinking over the day's antics, Haruhi decided that it should be nearly impossible for Renge to inspire any sort of coherent thought in anyone….except perhaps Tamaki.

But Tamaki was particularly prone to irrelevant flights of fancy anyway. He didn't particularly need anyone to help him.

…However, in Renge's otaku saturated dialogue and her usual pointless speech about categorizations, Haruhi had at some point actually discovered a relevant point.

At this point she sighed deeply at the revelation, thinking that she should really spend more time away from the parallel universe of the Host Club.

Renge had realized, in a very offhand and slightly dense way, that of all the categorizations, one seemed…not necessarily wrong…but slightly well, _off_ from what she had observed.

This was not at all how she had relayed the point, but the fact that it was Renge who had led Haruhi to contemplate the issue at all was more than a little bit disturbing.

Tamaki certainly tried to act the part of a prince, and if you were one of his customers…she guessed that _they_ all thought this fit him. Kyouya…he was cool in more than one way.

…he could make people shiver just by giving them that smile of his.

There was no question that the twins' categorization was appropriate…Haruhi had been personally exposed to their uh, _hosting skills_ numerous times.

As for Hunny, well, Haruhi wondered if anyone could mount a logical argument against his categorization. Except for his rare bursts of insight - which were troubling in their own right, but came solely after any guests had left – he fit the bill of his categorization right down to his pink Bun-Bun.

However, Mori was an entirely different matter.

"Wild" didn't exactly fit him.

He did seem earthy, perhaps even primal at times…and his bringing in boars to cook and chopping wood for completely irrelevant reasons would definitely contribute to this view. But "wild" still didn't exactly fit in the nice compartment that the other members of the Host Club's categorizations seemed to inhabit…well, at least the way they acted _inside_ of the club room during club hours.

…Outside of the fanatic supervision of the customers, however, was always a different story where they were concerned.

Haruhi wondered offhand how many of them would keel over dead of shock had they seen Kyouya demolish the "commoner's food because they lack time and servants for extensive preparation" (Just _how_ Tamaki had enough energy to come up with such ridiculously wordy and needlessly elaborate labels she could never figure out…and she probably didn't want to).

It didn't help that Tamaki most likely doled out the categorizations on a whim.

For her part, Haruhi had never understood what a "natural" type did either…perhaps Tamaki's imagination had actually faltered for a second.

But, she mused, coming back to the point, "wild" in its earthy, primal sense still didn't completely sum up his entire personality. It seemed to miss the mark in some barely noticeable way or failed to capture some essential part that was always present both in and out of the Third Music Room.

Or, she thought, a bit disturbed by the point her mind hit upon, perhaps Mori's categorization had a Western connotation to it.

Mori always seemed so…reserved? No, that wasn't a good way to define it…and it seemed like more than simply stoic and silent. But either way, it was completely ridiculous to think that somehow, at some point…Mori had been _wild_ in the Western sense.

The boar was certainly pointless enough.

But if someone wanted to see a wild person with a Western connotation, they merely had to see Tamaki on one of his particularly exuberant days…or the twins for that matter.

Maybe, in lieu of any logical assertions, Tamaki had merely given Mori the designation completely arbitrarily and hoped that people would project a wild image onto him…and had made it perfectly vague because of that.

But if that was the case, she really didn't think that Tamaki had the capacity to be that calculating.

If he did, that would be quite troublesome.

No, that was more of something that Kyouya would do.

However, any way you looked at it, and for whatever inane reason they had decided to give Mori that designation, he remained an enigma.

Haruhi had been told that she usually was able to capture the basic essence of a person…often more bluntly than she needed to.

But, with Mori, she couldn't decide if there was something wild about him or…_wild_ about him.

But there were many things, she had been continually reminded, that she didn't yet know and perhaps didn't want to know.

For the time being she decided merely that Mori was Mori and was content.

**Fin**

**A/N: ** This is dedicated to wingsx on lj and mostly inspired by her discussion / question of Mori's categorization on the ouranhostclub community. I didn't really answer her question though, so sorry! U On a side note, I also did this to try out Haruhi's voice…so criticism of that would be very much appreciated, particularly where you found her either nicely IC or very OOC. Thanks for reading!


	4. Inconvenient

**Title:** "Inconvenient"

**Series:** Ouran High School Host Club

**Genre:** Romance/Introspective

**Word Count:** 567

**Characters:** Haruhi, Tamaki

**Pairings:** HaruhixTamaki

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** None.

**Inconvenient**

Haruhi merely viewed loving him as a minor inconvenience…inevitable, yes, but slightly annoying as well.

However, it wasn't as if the literally crushing attention was something she was unaccustomed to, as her father had done it all her life.

The saccharine declarations of never-ending love, promises of heavenly riches, and inaccurate comparisons of her beauty to that of deities and the like could be easily drowned out by simply contemplating the day's schedule, the subject matter of her law textbooks, the dinner menu, the time the sale at the supermarket ended…pretty much anything besides the tumult of irrelevant words pouring out of his mouth.

However, she did love him, despite all of his irrelevance, frivolity, foolishness, entirely too free lifestyle, and seemingly inexhaustible and pointless energy.

Sometimes she sighed thinking about all of those parts and wondered why she bothered to love such a troublesome person anyways.

He did, she confessed, have his rare serious moments (_very rare_, she corrected herself mentally) and perhaps, she might grudgingly admit, he could potentially be almost endearing.

These instances were, however, decidedly few and far between when compared to the sheer amount of time he did irrelevant and pointless things.

…Such as the time he had attempted to use her kitchen to make her pancakes before a big test…

The attempt had resulted in one melted spatula, two ruined pans, and three large stacks of pancakes in states from goopy to blackened and at every stage in between with the exception of what she would call an edible state.

It had been more of a stress simply to clean up and calm down the overly emotional man when he had crawled into the corner than anything, although he, like always, began with good intentions.

Perhaps that was why.

Although what he did and how he loved her more often than not became an inconvenience, Haruhi knew without fail that everything he did he at least _started_ with the best of intentions.

…his execution was just always a bit off. Or entirely off. Or completely pointless. Or far too dramatic and elaborate. Or completely divorced from any reality she knew of…

And she knew that, above all, Tamaki Suoh really was a troublesome person.

But, inconvenient though she found loving him, she had adjusted to it even though she still found the emotion itself to be a bit pointless in practical terms.

Haruhi adjusted to the inconvenience of loving him like she had adjusted to an 80,000-yen debt and its aftermath or having an okama father.

It was simply a fact. She loved him, troublesome though Tamaki almost always was.

Inconvenient or not, Haruhi always stuck to and dealt with the facts of the situation.

And that was that.

**Fin**

**A/N:** This is my attempt to show that HaruhixTamaki does indeed work without either going OOC. I'm actually very proud of it…btw, I am still taking requests for drabble prompts...can be either general fic, character introspective, or pairing …but just saying, "write a KyouyaxHaruhi fic!" doesn't count…I need a little to go off. Next will be a twins drabble, so, when I get some feedback on this one, I'll post that. But I hope you enjoyed and, as always, comments are appreciated and will be responded to personally!


	5. Family Ties

**Title:** "Family Ties"

**Series:** Ouran High School Host Club

**Genre:** Humor

**Word Count:** 535

**Characters:** Hitachiin Twins, Haruhi, mentions of Kyouya and Tamaki

**Pairings:** None. Could be Twins/Haruhi if you squinted pretty hard though.

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** None.

**Family Ties**

**For Hikagi (Happy Birthday!) and Fullmetal Ai**

Any time those two secluded themselves there was bound to be trouble.

_And_ they had started _whispering_ which meant that they were very bored.

And boredom was never a good thing when Kaoru and Hikaru were involved.

Perhaps it should have worried Haruhi all the more when they had both gotten up and followed her to the bathroom during the club meeting…however, Haruhi being Haruhi didn't make as much of the event as she, in hindsight, should have.

If Tamaki's yells of protest weren't enough to warn her about their ploy, then certainly the fact that they immediately walked up and linked arms with her alerted her to whatever their nefarious purpose was.

She stopped and turned around, knowing that, however much she actually needed to use the bathroom…if she dragged them with her…well, it wouldn't be very pretty at all.

As usual, they began their scheme with neither preamble nor apology.

"Mother has decided she'd like you to model some things for her," Kaoru stated, nonchalantly.

Nonplussed, Haruhi merely answered, "Whatever you two want, the answer is no."

Meanwhile, Hikaru had drawn a photo out of his blazer of the gaudiest pairs of shoes she had ever seen…._and_ they probably cost as much as a year's worth of rent on her apartment per pair.

"This way," they said in unison, "your gender won't be a problem because they will only be looking at your feet."

Haruhi ignored their synchronized thumbs up and merely walked the way back to the Third Music Room in annoyed silence, hoping Kyouya wouldn't add to her debt for this waste of club time.

"Haruhi-" Hikaru began but he was cut off by Haruhi's calm voice.

"That's not really why you two decided to follow me though."

She finished her thought silently, cynically adding, _because you are most definitely up to something_.

After a moment of shock they both broke into identical smiles…and _oh_ that _grin_.

"Haruhi, we've decided-"

"-that since you can tell us apart-"

"We must definitely adopt you into our family."

She walked out of their embrace and down the hall, completely disinterested and mumbling, "No thank you, I already have a family."

They stopped her again just in front of the door of the Third Music Room. They still had that _grin_.

"We think we'll adopt you anyway."

"And then" they whispered, opening the door and walking in, "you can be part of our act."

She stopped, completely dumbfounded. Tamaki was already running at the trio, shouting something about removing unscrupulous hands from his cute daughter. But, firmly trapped by the encircling arms of the Hitachiin twins, there was no feasible method of escape.

"And" started Hikaru, "we'll change the name to Hitachiin-cest, just for you."

Their grips tightened around her as they assumed their conventional poses. Haruhi could see a minor nuclear explosion go off in Tamaki's head as he witnessed the carnal display.

"Family is a beautiful kind of symmetry, don't you think, Hikaru?"

At that moment, Haruhi decided that whenever she went anywhere with them from then on, she would make sure that she had somebody accompany her.

…Not that it mattered where _they_ were concerned.

**Fin**

**A/N:** Written for a prompt that included bathroom, shoes, twincest, and the family dynamic (I get incredibly random prompts from people at times) from the combined intellects of Fullmetal Ai, Suzanami, and Hikagi…

Oh the twins…they make my fics go cracktastic.

And still taking requests (and I've gotten some awesome ones so far, so I am pleased!)

Hope you enjoyed!


	6. Instrumentation

**Title:** "Instrumentation"

**Series:** Ouran High School Host Club

**Genre:** Humor / Crack

**Word Count:** 365

**Characters:** Kyouya, mentions of everyone else

**Pairings:** Mori/Tambourine, TamakixPiano OTP

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** None.

**Instrumentation**

Tamaki's vision of a music day was going to be more difficult than he had originally thought.

Kyouya examined the large, cumbersome object before him, habitually using one finger to push his glasses farther up by their bridge (the gesture, although it gained him nothing in the way of clarity, did create a certain persona that he was rather fond of).

A tuba, in his refined and educated opinion, was far too large and obvious to suit his tastes...and the parts such things played in the overall schema of the orchestrations were often appallingly simple and far too overt.

He imagined, fleetingly, the twins playing such an instrument...but the idea of so much property damage caused by the simple pursuit of a bass line was quite a sobering thought. Perhaps he'd recommend that they be given a triangle...the possibility of misuse of such an instrument wasn't quite as high.

...not that he didn't put it past them. But he also calculated that a triangle would make a nice addition to Mori's tambourine.

He eyed the rest of the assorted inventory of instruments before him, wondering briefly (because it was never a good idea to dwell on such things) why Tamaki had included a set of bagpipes among the assembled instruments.

Kyouya mused that if Tamaki hadn't already demonstrated his skill as a pianist, the bagpipes would have made ample use of his vast quantities of hot air.

But no matter how much the idiot begged him, Kyouya was not about to play the tuba for anyone.

Rather, he picked up the case that contained his violin (an elegant instrument that cultivated the exact image he wished to invoke quite readily) and wandered over towards the door of the Third Music Room, all the while wondering what someone with Haruhi's utter lack of musical talent could possibly play.

**FIN**

**A/N:** Uh…for Hikagi…or more appropriately her sister who wanted Kyouya and Mori to play…the tuba? Instead, Kyouya decided that he could never play the tuba…and Mori/Tambourine is too canon to break up. Anyways, something light and humorous to break up the seriousness of the past couple…well, with the exception of the twincest one.

One must obey the Shadow King. It does not bode well for the Ootori Private Police and purple flower attack to happen to you.

Comments appreciated as usual...hope you enjoyed!


	7. Testament

**Title:** "Testament"

**Series:** Ouran High School Host Club

**Genre:** Introspective / Speculative

**Word Count:** 1,023

**Characters:** Kaoru, Hikaru, Tamaki, Haruhi, mentions of others

**Pairings:** Implied TamakixHaruhi, one-sided HikaruxHaruhi

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** Slight spoilers for chapter 43 of the manga (most recent one).

**Disclaimer:** Unless I was very clever and trying out plot ideas on you, I totally do not own any of this.

**Testament**

Kaoru wondered if his role in all that was going on before him was to merely stand testament to the events without actually having any real power to change anything.

All that had been promised and alluded to by Tamaki before they had ever opened the door to the Third Music Room seemed on the verge of becoming true…if it hadn't already become so.

The "our" that had been so distinct and pronounced for so long was slowly and surely melting into a much wider world. "Our" no longer had the same context even when they spoke about it amongst themselves. Now "our" could mean anything from the entirety of the club, to their classmates, to the small trio that included Haruhi. "Our" was beginning to lose its cosmic, ringing significance.

Sometimes, Kaoru, peering at the cast of players assembled, wondered if Hikaru really saw any of this. Kaoru himself certainly hadn't asked and thought that he most likely never would.

But what he _did_ see was a new and disturbing facet of his brother.

It wasn't readily apparent to anyone but him – and perhaps, Kyouya, - but he could see a darkness about him that manifested itself in the whiteness of his knuckles as he gripped the phone when Kyouya had answered that yes, Haruhi was going to Karuizawa _with_ Tamaki of her own free will.

Kaoru didn't like either the dark frown nor the voice tinged with leering anger that responded to Kyouya's words.

Up until this point, he had fully come to realize that they had not only been isolated…they had been _insulated_.

Beyond the foyer was a room more spacious than they had ever imagined.

The realities of life without a well defined "our" and with an even less developed "I" were about to come down hard on his brother. Especially since the wrath of this inevitable collision would most likely fall on the head of their beloved and foolish Tono.

At this, Kaoru could only sigh.

If Hikaru chose to take on Tono could there be any real way to restrain the consequences of his hotheaded idiocy?

And, especially since Haruhi had decided to side with their idiotic president on her own – and Kaoru could only venture to guess what that meant knowing that girl – he knew that Hikaru would inevitably lose if he acted as Kaoru expected him to.

Even if Haruhi's willingness to go along with Tono's plans was something other than a reciprocity of emotion and Hikaru's fears were completely unfounded, Haruhi, he knew very well, would most likely find little to admire in the behavior he was likely to display. It was true they had traveled a good distance beyond the threshold of the door that they had opened…but the distance they simply had to make up to catch up with their classmates was still staggering.

Haruhi had already slapped him once for a much lighter offense than he was likely to commit. The odds that she would be tolerant towards Hikaru's probable outburst were low, at best. It would only lead her to side with their Tono yet again.

Kyouya, he knew, would almost certainly ally himself with Tono.

Hunny and Mori would most likely claim a neutral territory, simply trying to negotiate between the two parties. But they both had debts to Tamaki as well. So even this wasn't certain.

All of Hikaru's efforts would effectively isolate him in a much larger world where there was no longer anyone to insulate him.

And, if Hikaru did do that, Kaoru thought sadly, where would that leave him in the world they had ventured into?

Kaoru was perfectly aware that Tono deserved none of his twin's misplaced ire. But he also knew that Hikaru, as of yet, had no real idea what to do with such feelings.

One fact, however, still remained.

The fact that they _had_ a world and, indeed, had _Haruhi_ in the first place was due only to Tamaki's stubborn efforts.

He had invited them onto the carriage…and though it would undoubtedly one day turn into a pumpkin, Kaoru still secretly thought something that he never would voice to anyone.

Tono had his own unique magic.

He was such a source of brightness that people couldn't help but gravitate toward him and be affected by it, in turn. The pull that he exerted even _unconsciously_ was simply too great.

It was a quality that he had found that even Haruhi lacked, and he knew that both Hikaru and himself regarded her as a source of brightness almost equal to Tono. But, what she lacked in magic she made up for in common rationality and sharp observation.

Tono merely wove spells unconsciously, through tenacity, through surprising observation, through straightforward sacrifice. And, affected though their "our" was by Haruhi, she couldn't match the unnamed quality that he had.

And, ever since the school festival when she had learned the extent of Tono's magic, when Kaoru caught her smile at his small acts, he was aware that Haruhi understood too.

Hikaru had no such magic.

Neither of them had yet had an opportunity to develop it.

One day, when Hikaru's knuckles were no longer balled up in rage at an unconfirmed thought and he could quietly assert that perhaps Tono deserved happiness beyond that which he shared with everyone else, _then_, perhaps, Hikaru would learn his own brand of magic to exercise on the world.

But, for now, as he stared at his brother's stony face as he merely sat in seething silence, Kaoru could only stand testament to what was occurring.

Because he realized that, he too, lacked the magic spell to dissolve everything into harmless words or the power to hold people back from their own self-realizations.

But, wishing for such a type of magic was just as useless – such magic simply allowed them both to remain standing in the threshold. It was staged to make something appear to be something that it could not be in reality.

The real magic was flowing in the world beyond the threshold, where he hoped they would both one day arrive.

**Fin**

**A/N:** I love Kaoru to pieces…his pumpkin/carriage metaphor in the anime totally won me over to him…I just love his metaphoric way of looking at things and his budding self-realization, especially when contrasted against Hikaru's slower process of development.

The end of chapter 43 kinda blew my mind and although this fic spawned from the line "Tamaki had his own unique magic" thought up while watching baseball at the stadium…strangely enough…that scene and the differing expressions on both of the twins' faces kinda ate my brain. That pretty much encapsulated the differences in their personalities and consequent development for me.

Comments and feedback are, as always, appreciated greatly and will (most likely) receive a personal response from me.

Thanks for reading!


	8. Love and Faithfulness

**Title:** "Love and Faithfulness"

**Series:** Ouran High School Host Club

**Genre:** Introspective / Speculative, some angst

**Word Count:** 1,104

**Characters:** Kyouya, Haruhi, Tamaki

**Pairings:** KyouyaxHaruhi, one-sided TamakixHaruhi

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** Kinda spoilers for Volume 6 of the manga / episode 25 of the anime.

**Notes:** For Riceball-san…but as a warning, it is not at all fluffy.

**Disclaimer:** Unless I am very clever and trying out plot ideas on you, I totally do not own any of this.

**Love and Faithfulness**

sciathan file

"_Love and faithfulness keep a king safe._

_Through love his throne is made secure."_

- Proverbs 20:28

The first time he had caught her surreptitiously glancing at him, he thought that he had imagined the very _specific_ nature of her look.

Instead, he had passed it off as merely a brief aberration or a rare mistake on his part due to the decidedly few hours of sleep he had managed to catch the previous night.

But after a week of such "rare" mistakes occurring, Kyouya was forced to admit that there was something in those glances of Haruhi's that did not resemble any aspect of her normal calm and observant gaze.

No. There was something in them akin to…

…_interest._

And, try as he might to make it otherwise, after a length of time had passed, he could safely admit that there was no trace of the usual anthropological interest she usually displayed when observing the rest of the club.

And…try as he might…he himself couldn't help but think that these uncharacteristic glances were, for lack of a better way of putting it, _interesting_ in turn

This revelation, clear and sharp and intense as he found it, only allowed room for a single thought in him – Kyouya found such mutual interest to be disturbing at best.

It was a feeling he would not dare to disturb the universe with. In fact, to this disturbance of the framework of his immaculately ordered world, the carefully constructed facades and deceptions all reacted and a single rationale was born –

Such _interest_ was a veritable _liability_.

The second thought that occurred to him as a result of his unfortunate and unsettling revelation was the fact that he now had indisputable proof that Tamaki would indeed be disappointed in his pursuit.

Even though his idiotic best friend had fooled the majority of the world into thinking that his love for the masses was boundless and that by dint of a purely stubborn frame of mind he had somehow rendered himself impervious to any sort of misfortune, Kyouya knew better.

Contrary to popular belief, Kyouya knew that Suoh Tamaki was not indeed immune to every unpleasant thing that happened to him by virtue of his positivism.

Kyouya had stretched everything out to its logical and rational end and had come to the conclusion that what Tamaki felt for Haruhi was nothing less than the rarest and purest form of love he possessed.

Watching him, Kyouya had ticked each possibility off of his list concerning his involvement with Haruhi. He had filled pages upon pages of his notebook with notes of encounters between them, measures of progress of his self-realization, lists of Haruhi's habits, and the ever increasing list of uncharacteristic blunders in her presence.

It was, he decided, not simple infatuation, not a misguided affinity for the Commoner's culture placed on the shoulders of a representative figurehead, not the same sort of love that flowed out in the form of the well-refined verbosity that he showed to any other female.

Kyouya had concluded that, in Tamaki's case, it was nothing less than pure, unadulterated, awkward, inexperienced, Love.

But Kyouya also knew that, events and emotions being the way that they were, it was his duty to remove all liabilities from the space of their floating world.

He would keep things a matter of business and not emotion. By necessity.

Taking out his ledger, he opened up to the section in which he recorded his hard copy of the Club's accounting. Fingering a well-worn page, he looked over the section that displayed the Special Scholarship Student's debts.

The pages were impeccably laid out, figures in orderly rows and columns, calculations and enumerations of items laid out on an invisible grid – orderly, immaculate, _contained_.

Picking up a pen he began calculating every facet of every transaction, every broken teacup, every slightly irate customer, every slight hike in interest, every few minutes wasted. He totaled every column and began applying conservative adjustments and found that everything could be brought down to a new and perfectly numerically feasible conclusion.

In the end he found that she would have only a single week's worth of designations to cover the remaining balance.

When he made this announcement, rather than the upwelling of noise that usually occurred when anything of note happened within the Third Music Room, there was a hanging, penetrating silence.

Tamaki didn't even seem to fathom his words. He just stared up at him with a look of shock laced with an underlying hint of pained accusation.

For a moment Kyouya wondered what he suspected.

But it was more than likely that he had saw the announcement as a betrayal of a perceived tacit agreement.

With a nod and slight look around at the rest of them, the Special Scholarship Student who had crashed through the walls of the Ouran Host Club, left.

When it was certain that he would not meet up with her unexpectedly, he followed her out of the room at a safe distance, offering neither comment nor excuse to anyone as to what had just transpired.

He had merely done what had needed to be done.

With a passing note of concern that he would not allow himself to fully realize, he noted that Tamaki had neither called his cell phone nor his home number.

Deep into the predawn hours, the study of the Ootori mansion remained a sanctuary of uninterrupted silence.

_Love and faithfulness keep a king safe,_ he thought ironically, sipping black coffee and filling in transactions and newly acquired data. He glanced at the phone, expecting it to ring at any moment, but it had stayed stubbornly quiet even when Kyouya finally went to bed in the early hours of the morning.

Love and faithfulness kept neither king safe, it seemed.

**Fin**

**A/N:** Hope no one wandered in here expecting fluff. U Different characterization of Kyouya than I usually use...which was interesting. The lack of the use of proper nouns for distinguishing between Kyouya and Tamaki at some points was intentional, so is the fact that Haruhi isn't mentioned by name during the entire second half of this…and I totally made Kyouya Prufrock. But really, I'm just trying to figure out the phenomenon that is KyouyaxHaruhi to myself…I'd love it if more people managed to successfully account for Tamaki and Kyouya's loyalties to him as well as his own future prospects. Challenge…? Thus, you have this fic.

Thanks for reading! As always comments are greatly appreciated and will almost always be answered personally.

Music – "Nocturne for Orchestra" - Ouran OST, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" – Panic! At the Disco


	9. Scandalous!

**Title:** "_Scandalous!_"

**Series:** Ouran High School Host Club

**Genre:** Humor

**Word Count:** 900

**Characters:** Fangirls, Kyouya, secret!

**Pairings:** FangirlsxGossip OTP and a secret pairing (for suspense purposes)

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** Minor spoilers for Tamaki's background.

_**Scandalous!**_

sciathan file

Every husband who brought their wife to the ten-year reunion of Class-A was either mystified or a bit wary of their wives' behavior upon their arrival in the opulent ballroom of Ouran Academy.

As each male arrived they were greeted with some variety of wheedling, threats, implausible excuses, or a simple _look_ that warned them not to inquire further about what would transpire.

The women then set up a small, fortified section of the ballroom next to the punchbowl into which no male could pass without receiving the warning glare of the vast majority of the room's female population….and, wisely, no male particularly wished to hazard _that_.

In fact, the only one who they allowed close to their ranks was an integral part of the mystery they were all jointly trying to solve.

But Ootori Kyouya did nothing but smile politely at them, take a glass of wine from the smartly dressed caterer, and return to his casual chat with a group of business associates without comment.

This treasonous act so slighted the crowd of females that a many of them sent a number of furtive, frigid looks towards him…which he either missed entirely or just ignored. This merely made the group wonder all the more when Kyouya-kun was tight-lipped and unaccommodating concerning the matter.

It was, in their collective imagination, so incredibly unlike the Kyouya-kun that they had known during their time spent at school.

And since the only male ally that they believed they possessed had failed them, they all decided that such a thing was best left to contemplate on their own.

"I heard," one began in a hushed tone, the rest leaning closer, "that they discovered that he had an amorous affair with a maid!"

There was a small outcry of disbelief and a few protests that were silenced when the rest of the group threw a pointed look at the bored looking males assembled at the other end of the room.

"Not a maid," one said, absent-mindedly flipping a curl from her face, "I heard he went and seduced an American heiress."

"Not hard," one quipped.

"I heard that it was the _heiress_ that did the seducing, actually."

They all paused from their collective gossiping and glared at the woman who had said this, clearly intimating she did not belong in their company.

"Such a thing could never happen!"

"Impossible!"

"As if any woman would be so bold as to do that to _him_."

"Really, it must've– "

They cut their speculations off, spying Kyouya once again coming towards them. They glared. He smiled. They remained glaring. He remained smiling and left, a fresh glass of wine in his hands.

"Even Kyouya-kun doesn't talk about it."

There was a general murmur of assent at the importance of this fact.

"It was," one broke in, eager to get her own opinions out, "quite a _scandal_."

The group grew rather noisy again, and the word "scandal" in all its taboo glory spread around like a wild fire. It was something_ thought_, but never _mentioned_.

The gentle hum of the throng of women in all their cocktail finery worked to push the girl out to the fringes where the other one now sat, sullenly observing, but finding herself unable to simply leave.

"I heard…it was a man."

There was a pulsating thrill that ran throughout the group at this suggestion that decidedly should not have been there. If the mere thought of the person in discussion not having been the seducer in the whole matter bothered them, then surely such a blatant accusation _should_ have.

But, at such a social function they all should have been dancing with their husbands and enjoying the orchestra's music. In all, "should have" mattered little to them where such things as scandal were concerned.

"Maybe…_that_'s why Kyouya-kun won't speak to us."

Now the matter had gone from "scandal" to _scandalous!_

As if, at the drop of a hat, the icy looks that were subtly thrown at the aforementioned male gained a blatant, fiery quality that was unmistakable. However, he had, unfortunately, wandered off and missed the spectacle.

Fortunately, the true focus of their speculation had walked through the doors, accompanied by both Kyouya and a new woman, who made them buzz with fierce intensity.

The fire in their eyes threatened to burn straight through these figures as a fierce whisper came out, "So _she's_ why Tamaki-sama's grandmother disinherited him!"

And then the "she" who Tamaki held lightly by the arm took on a new interest for them when they realized _she_ was not indeed a _she_ at all, but a _he _that they all knew very well. And at this discovery, a chorus of cheers – accompanied by bursts of swooning and showers of tears - interrupted every other event at the reunion.

"Tamaki-sama married Haruhi-kun!" and "Haruhi's a _lovely_ okama!" and various other comments, far too unsavory to relate, became their overt and shrill battle cry.

Hearing this, Tamaki glanced from Haruhi to the crowd of screaming females.

"Haruhi," he asked haltingly, "Didn't you make an announcement of your real gender before you graduated?"

She blinked at him a few times before answering.

"I thought it would be too troublesome."

Kyouya looked over at the crowd of rabid females, practically salivating over this new development in the scandalous life of Suou Tamaki, commenting, "This certainly makes for an interesting reunion."

**Fin**

**A/N:** This was my first entry in the Ouranfic community's biweekly contest on LJ…and it won! still shocked But, don't we all love the fangirls?

Comments are, as always, appreciated. Hope you enjoyed!


	10. A Tale Begun in Other Days

**Title:** "A Tale Begun in Other Days"

**Genre:** General, romance if you want to squint.

**Word Count:** 1075 with Author's Notes

**Characters:** Tamaki, Haruhi

**Pairings:** TamakixHaruhi if you want to interpret it that way.

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** Need to have watched episode 13 of the anime.

**Preliminary note:** This, for reasons that I hope will become apparent, belongs to the anime canon. Oh, and I don't own either of the works featured. One of my weirder pieces, as a warning. Spoilers for episode 13 of the anime.

**A Tale Begun in Other Days**

** sciathan file **

"Work, work, and still more work."(1)

The small ditty played in her exhausted mind like a refrain to some forgotten tune. The troublesome little phrase repeated over and over, completely covering up the one that said, "sleep for the first time in two days and nineteen hours."

But it was common practice for Fujioka Haruhi to remain awake for days on end when an important trial date was impending.

She had more than enough instant coffee, time enough for an occasional ice cold shower, and enough distance from anyone who might notice and stop her from overdosing on the work load in front of her.

"Work, work, and still more work," she mumbled to herself, proofreading the long legal brief for at least (she had lost count somewhere around her fifth cup of coffee that day) the seventh time.

The case was not as clear-cut as she wished it was and it was not even her normal branch of law, but the client had insisted that an old _acquaintance _of hers had recommended her heartily as the only lawyer worth going to.

Even though Haruhi very rarely talked to him and actually saw him even fewer times (a very rare event, indeed), Suou Tamaki still managed to be troublesome after all of these years.

But, all the disadvantages of the case aside, she had still put her normal amount of work into it…in this case having an absence of sleep for almost three days… unless one counted naps of durations no longer than fifteen minutes.

And, even though she sometimes heard other partners of her law firm whispering about the fact that she lived at the office more than her apartment – not that she really cared about their opinions on the subject – it took a certain level of…_dedication_…to get where she was now.

It took "work, work, and still more work."

In a mind that even triple shots of espresso had difficulty keeping awake, the phrase kept repeating in someone else's voice.

And perhaps this was the most curious thing of all. "Curiouser and curiouser,"(2) one might say, for a person such as the nearly indomitable lawyer, Fujioka Haruhi, to have such a ridiculous litany said again and again in _his_ voice.

The fact that it was on his recommendation that she had the client and his difficult case in the first place combined with his maddening rhyming made Haruhi doubly annoyed with Tamaki.

They hadn't even spoken for at least three months either. In fact, she hadn't spoken to most of her old friends in three months…but then again only Tamaki and the Hitachiin twins now hazarded her busy work schedule.

Chiding herself for allowing her mind to wander, she returned to the brief.

"And the undersigned, herein after referred to as OWNER –" The words danced and swam on the page.

Even though she had gone much longer periods without sleep, this was sign that no matter how many times she rubbed her eyes or how many cups of coffee she drank, nothing but actual rest would suffice.

Spreading the futon she kept in the storage closet of her office out, she finally slept. And, as usual for Haruhi in times of stress, she dreamed of Ouran…but, this was not _quite_ Ouran.

She, however, had the vague feeling that she had been there before.

Curiously, she found herself standing – while wearing her middle school uniform, no less – in a rose garden, a table with a Ginori tea set in front of her.

There was a strange man sitting there in a ridiculously large hat and maroon coat, casually sipping tea.

"Only one seat here," he commented nonchalantly.

It was so strange that she could only mutter a, "huh?"

A clock chimed three in the ensuing silence.

Failing to think of anything better, she took a seat across from him.

"Riddle, riddle!" Said the man, quite suddenly. Perplexed, Haruhi merely stared.

"Why is spring the most beautiful season?"(3) he continued.

Haruhi responded by blinking at him. However, her confusion must not have registered at all on the man, for he continued to drink his tea just as casually, using his pinky to cushion the cup every time he set it back upon the table.

"And what do you intend to do with your life _now_?" He asked slyly.

" 'My life now?'" She decided that this was a mad hatter indeed.

"Riddle, riddle!" He stated again, ignoring the fact that his guest was both confused and hadn't answered the last question.

"How can you have everything and still lack everything?"

She sighed and, tired of the frivolous game, said, "I don't know, Tamaki-senpai."

"Work, work, and still more work," the man lamented before smiling and pointing at her with his usual vigor, spilling his teacup.

"You still stand accused of ignoring the most important parts of life yet again!"

At this point, due to a feeling of seeping stickiness, she awoke and realized that she had knocked an entire cup of coffee onto her futon in her sleep-deprived delirium.

Even shaking the dream off, there was still a nagging voice – that, irritatingly, belonged to Tamaki, and urged her to do something.

Haruhi sighed and pushed her work aside for the first time in a week, picking up her phone so that her second conscience would quiet down from her bout of over working.

**Fin**

**A/N:** Weird and kinda random…mostly a product of analyzing the Alice in Wonderland episode for an analytical research paper for my Children's Literature class. The anime is amazingly faithful to most of the elements of the book, in case you were wondering.

Now, the gallery of notes:

**Title** – It's actually a line from the poem that precedes the sequel to _Alice in Wonderland_, _Through the Looking Glass_.

**Other Randomly Imbedded Notes -**

Tamaki's refrain from the Wonderland episode, Lunar's translation.

From page 15 of _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_, the Yearling edition (to lazy to properly cite).

A pun, fitting to both Japanese culture and the original _Alice_ books…Haruhi's name has "spring" in it, so it's a Tamaki-esque compliment as well.

As always, I hope you enjoyed! Comments will be answered with zeal and personal responses to my lovely readers!


	11. Just Out of Reach

**Title:** "Just Out of Reach"

**Genre:** Introspective/Romance

**Word Count:** 1,287

**Characters:** Ayame, mentions of Hitachiin Twins, Kyouya, and Tamaki

**Pairings:** One-sided AyamexKyouya, one-sided AyamexTamaki

**Rating:** PG-13

**Spoilers:** Ayame's arc, volume 5 of the manga.

**Disclaimer:** Nope, still don't own Ouran. I'm still a poor, starving college student who can only draw stick figures and write fanfiction.

**Spoilers:** If you want to have any clue as to what is going on you need to have read through Ayame's arc in volume 5 of the manga.

For dearest subtlesubtext (who requested this) and also her partner in crime, yousogaisaki (because I want to). You two are a riot. 3

**Just Out of Reach**

** sciathan file**

No one could possibly say that Jonouchi Ayame was anything other than an utter pragmatist.

From her elementary school days her hair had been neat, orderly, and impeccably straight and she had never been subject to the undignified scrapes and bruises and dirty clothes of the other children. In fact, she was more likely to be found in a place that was as close to silent as she could get, - without sitting in the middle of a mausoleum - reading a novel or textbook more properly suited for someone twice her age.

And, should anyone have ever so much as intimated that she had a single bone in her body that wasn't fully inclined toward realism and efficiency, she would have lectured them in a voice that one of the impertinent Hitachiin twins – which, she didn't know, as they seemed practically interchangeable anyways – had told her reminded them of the one of those weird devices that they had seen within the American Western films.

Ayame being Ayame, had immediately set out to ascertain that this couldn't be farther from the truth. The next day she presented them both with four articles about the telegraph and gave them and inspired oral report on the dissimilarity – and in fact, the almost diametric opposition of the sound waves - between the human voice and Morse code.

But, being five and not caring for oddities such as this girl, the twins had both wandered off grumbling about being bored and speculating loudly that, if they kept listening to the older girl, they might be lulled to sleep by her tone of voice.

She merely liked to think that the two weren't mature enough to understand the scholarship she had put into the issue for their benefit.

Indeed, Jonouchi Ayame in no way, shape, or form, resembled an idealist in any manner.

But, she also had a small – so small it was barely worth mentioning - secret…one she had carried with her from elementary school when she had first discovered that she wasn't alone in her passion for intellectual pursuits.

Ootori Kyouya had won her attention solely by the fact that he had _beaten_ her at something.

…Even if it was only a simple math test and the difference was a margin of two points...But, eight year olds are known to hold grudges that last for considerable lengths of time.

From then on, every single compliment, word of praise, and point that Kyouya earned over her was like a stab at her very academically motivated heart.

Ayame the pragmatist _should_ have despised this boy with every single cell within her body. However, secretly, Ayame found that she could do no such thing.

As she entered middle school, she found that despite all of her propensity towards realism and high rankings, each time Ootori Kyouya beat her, she felt something of admiration and…_attraction_ mixed in with her frustration and rage…which was beyond her comprehension and an exhaustive search had failed to yield an answer in any critical text or within any scholarly opinion.

Because Ayame knew that she unequivocally did her best every time, on each test, on each assignment. She predictably spent time reading ridiculously advanced material and poring through the current course content ad nauseum so that she could feign that same aloof demeanor that the Ootori boy possessed.

But no matter how many pages she outlined or extra study material she acquired or sleepless nights with copious amounts of coffee she studied, she was always beaten by a mere handful of points.

The whole matter was incredibly aggravating, to say the very, very least.

But it was never a simple, explainable matter of academic envy.

Ootori Kyouya's very existence forced Ayame to admit that she wasn't the consummate pragmatist she desperately tried to be. It reminded her that there was that fraction of a percent in her that was inclined towards idealism and sought to reach for things that remained just out of her grasp, just a few centimeters from the tips of her fingers…

Ayame realized she was reaching out for someone who was, at least in terms of her academically oriented worldview, the brightest star in the sky.

…And unless one counted the plethora of golden stars that she had accumulated during her kindergarten days when she was still capable of beating Kyouya hands down, Ayame had known that reaching out for stars was an act of folly.

She had _always_ meant to become someone who did not reach out for fragments of idealism.

…Because the brightest stars weren't something anyone could win and pin down to a chart as evidence of conquest and achievement. By nature, they were something that lingered just outside the region of possibility as something completely untouchable.

One only thought to touch them if they were a bit impractical and inclined towards delusional fantasies that served no greater aim.

And Ayame had no inclination whatsoever to be one of _those_ people.

But because of that _boy_ somewhere she knew that such base inclinations existed in her. Moreover, she knew that Ootori Kyouya had none of these traits whatsoever and would never be prone to the same flights of fancy. He was already the complete pragmatist that Ayame wanted to be so desperately.

She envied him and admired him for this in a way that he could never possibly reciprocate.

So, when Suou Tamaki had walked in and shown every considerable mark of being a person entirely at the whim of such idealistic reveries, Ayame paid no heed to him.

He was noisy and spouted off unsupported nonsense…nothing that showed any of the caliber of an individual worthy of her attention.

But then he had taken her straight hair - the very symbol of her will to attain that exalted invincibility that came with utter pragmatism and all traits Kyouya embodied – and complimented her with the most idealistic and foolish words that she had ever heard.

_Then_ the obnoxious idiot had surpassed even Kyouya, winning over her chief goal and rival _and_ her customary spot behind him in one fierce, boisterous blow…and for all of his impractical and utterly useless designs, this Tamaki began to shine even brighter above her than Kyouya had ever shone.

The small fraction of the smallest percent that shared in his foolishness wanted more than ever to reach out to that star.

**Fin**

**A/N:** A one-line inspiration fic inspired by the thought that Ayame is someone who constantly seeks to control everything through studying and such…but even that is only so effective sometime. The people she grudgingly admires are all ones who are capable of beating her at her own game and ones that are slightly apart from her.

I don't think the original line – "She always reached for the brightest stars in the sky and found that they were always just a short distance beyond her grasp." – ever even made it in there.

Anyways, for my dearest Ayame fans, I hope you liked it (even though its not very blatantly Kyouya/Ayame and wanders off into the realm of Tamaki/Ayame at the end…).

Thank you for reading! As always, comments will be received with enthusiasm and personal replies. :)


	12. Trifecta

These ficlets are all too short to get their own chapters, so as a New Years present, I have three little ficlets for you!

**Title:** Commoner Agrarian Devices

**Genre:** Humor, From a prompt, "Tamaki, Scarecrow"

**Word Count:** 205

**Characters:** Tamaki, Haruhi, the Hitachiin twins

**Pairings:** None.

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** None.

"Ah, such a marvel of Commoner ingenuity - just feast your eyes on the noble stitching, the exuberant stuffing, the wonderfully antiquated and distressed handcraftsmanship - and all to perform a convention that is necessary to the survival of that Everyman Salaryman on this cruel agrarian landscape because the Commoner - those noble beings such as my cute daughter - need such quaint and rural devices so that they do not know the unnecessary travails of hard and cold poverty!"

Haruhi sighed at her senpai's usual verbosity and, completely unimpressed by it, stated, "Tamaki-senpai...it's only a scarecrow."

At this comment, the Hitachiin twins both smiled evilly and, each draping an arm around her, whispered dramatically, (at a volume just loud enough for Tamaki to hear), "Ah, perhaps he sees a bit of himself in it...you know what that movie for Commoner's children with escapist fantasies says..."

With a look on her face somewhere between annoyed and perplexed she tried to ignore them both.

They grinned again, saying loudly "The scarecrow always wonders, 'If I only had a brain.'"

Suddenly she felt herself jerked about as both of them ran, her arms still very much entangled in their own and an enraged Tamaki close at their heels.

**Title:** Arranged Marriage…?

**Genre:** Humor, From a prompt "Ohtori-sama and Suoh-sama, arranged marriages"

**Word Count:** 193

**Characters:** Suou Yuzuru, Ootori Yoshio, Kyouya, mentions of Haruhi and Tamaki

**Pairings:** None really, almost implied TamakixHaruhi…almost.

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** Episode 26 of the anime.

Ootori Yoshio left the office, leaving Yuzuru alone to watch the fireworks bursting brightly outside. Yuzuru glanced at the picture of his son's host club on his desk...Somehow his son always ended up next to this Fujioka Haruhi in these photos, which was rather...curious...but then again, it was probably because he was so very cute and charismatic.

He would have to tease him about an arranged marriage with her. He chuckled to himself as he watched his darling son watch the fireworks, clasping the hand of the cute scholarship student whose heart Tamaki had stolen (at least Yuzuru, basking in an almost blinding fatherly glow, imagined the situation to be this way). His dear son would probably blush adorably if he was teased about her.

However, outside of the doors, the light of a cell phone glinted off of Ootori Yoshio's glasses.

"Kyouya," he stated, "I have a proposition of a new game for you."

There was a brief silence on the other line.

"Father," he responded in a bored sounding drawl, "I'm not interested in an arranged marriage to Haruhi. That sort of game is not interesting at all."

Yoshio blinked and merely looked at the phone. His son _was_ truly terrifying.

**Title:** Teddy Bear

**Genre:** Romance, shounen ai, from a prompt simply asking for "Kyouya/Tamaki"

**Word Count:** 174

**Characters:** Kyouya and Tamaki

**Pairings:** Kyouya/Tamaki

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** Episode 26 of the anime.

Kyouya had never had a stuffed animal as a child - he had preferred books beyond a doubt and thought the image that was created when one possessed soft toys was not one that conveyed a sense of maturity - and he certainly had no need of one now.

And _certainly_ not one that talked in his sleep in French. But, Kyouya was ashamed to admit (and indeed vowed never to confess to such a thing outside the space of his own head) that he really didn't mind the boy sleeping on his shoulder...even though they really should have been discussing the details of the next dance party.

The thought annoyed him slightly.

So, he pinched him.

Tamaki merely turned over with a small whine of "Kyouyaaaaa" and remained sleeping, mussing Kyouya's blazer further.

Kyouya pulled out his notebook and continued to write down the more nuanced details of the plan that he would be careful to make Tamaki adopt at a later time.

Looking over at the "stuffed animal" he had acquired, he decided that he would endure such an annoyance.

**A/N**: Happy New Year, again, to everyone! I hope you enjoyed these and, as usual comments will recieve personal replies. :)


	13. Sweet Nonsensical Nothings

Again, a _bunch_ of little fics for your enjoyment! Most of these were written for Valentine's requests, so they're rather fluffy. :0

**Title:** Sweet Nothings

**Genre:** Almost Romance…mostly humor, From a prompt, "Tamaki, Whispered Nothings"

**Word Count:** 270

**Characters:** Tamaki, Haruhi, random unnamed customers, the Hitachiin twins

**Pairings:** One-sided Tamaki/Haruhi (aren't they all?).

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** None.

Whispered sentimentalities came as easily as breathing to Tamaki.

To one customer he could say, with sincere heartfelt honesty (at least for that moment), "My princess, you are the crown jewel of my heart! The purest pearl! The must azure sapphire! An emerald the envy of all others every laid lovingly into a jeweler's setting! The divine burning passion of a blazing ruby!"

His customer, stammering the exuberance of her emotions in embarrassed deference to the object of her desires (Tamaki himself, of course) he would cup his hand sensuously about her face, and pulling her into a passionate dip would exclaim, "The passion of our feelings shall burn brighter than the most brilliant stars - the envy of Orion and Sirius and the shining pantheon of creation!"

Fainting and general gasps of inexpressible satisfaction would usually result.

However, finding himself alone with Haruhi he imagined all sorts of sweet nothings within his mind. He compared her intelligence to Athena, her beauty to the works of Michelangelo...and his mind, never tired of the pursuit, went on unceasingly.

However, in leaning in to tell her such sweet nothings as he told all the rest of the female population, something absolutely unprecedented always occurred.

Looking rather like a fish he opened his mouth and closed it several times - the pigmentation in his cheeks increasing violently - and said absolutely _nothing_.

After the twins pulled her away with the unjust claim that, judging from the look on his face, his actions were unscrupulous, Tamaki consoled himself knowing that, at the very least, it was the very sweetest nothing that had ever been unsaid.

**Fin**

**Title:** Possible Myth #1

**Genre:** Humor, From a prompt, "Antoinette's feelings on her master"

**Word Count:** 147

**Characters:** Tamaki ad Antoinette (his dog)

**Pairings:** Antoinette/Tamaki OTP.

**Rating:** PG - 13

**Spoilers:** None.

Possible Myth #1 - They say that pets take on the personality of their masters.

It was a lie. A nefarious lie told by the insipid little females about _her_ one and only.

They said that his most cherished lips - that veritable altar of his visage - had remained unsullied by contact with a female!

A lie! _I_ have graced and probed that holy mouth with my unworthy tongue! I have languished in his bed and matched every joy with my own!

Oh, I have rolled in fields of flowers with him and, in fits of exuberance, I find I can do nothing but topple him to the ground in pure ectasy!

I would chase after the frisbees thrown by his most lovely hands forever, if only to hear the sweet words, "Good doggy, Antoinette!" emerge from his mouth.

Ah, such sweet praise was never uttered!

**Fin**

**Title:** Theory and Practice

**Genre:** Romance/Introspective, From a prompt, "Tamaki, the meaning of love" (I think you can write a tome on that…a large nonsensical tome, yes, but a tome nonetheless.)

**Word Count:** 250

**Characters:** Tamaki, mentions of Haruhi.

**Pairings:** Tamaki/Haruhi.

**Rating:** PG.

**Spoilers:** Mild spoilers for Manga 40.

To Suou Tamaki love was the most impossibly abstract and yet inescapably important of the entire dazzling spectrum of emotions that humankind was capable of feeling.

Love was the goddess on the mountain top - a being that could topple towers of ivory and mountains with a single perfumed breath or raise up a hundred million golden altars and beautiful, thoughtless sacrifice. It was the white rose, pure and innocent, until it was stained with the blood of fiery yearning and passion and became the symbol of universal love, the blood red rose. Love was a thousand metaphors and a thing sung in every hymn and ballad of praise ever composed or thought of.

Love was food and sustenance and _life_.

But metaphors and goddesses and roses and such are all well and good and certainly something that sits _close_ to what love presumably _is_...but they are simply abstractions that never actually approximate a real, visceral thing.

The meaning of love was all theory. Suou Tamaki - being exceedingly intelligent in all that was impractical - understood the abstractions and the theory.

However, when it came to Fujioka Haruhi - a definite concrete concept - he failed to recognize love in practice. The blush and the desire for approval and the desire to kiss her upon the cheek and grow angry when others came close to her was far from abstract or theory.

No, while Suou Tamaki might understand the _meaning_ of love, he was a bit rusty in the actual practice.

**Fin**

**Title:** Ferris Wheel

**Genre:** Humor, From a prompt, "Kyouya somehow gets dragged on a ferris wheel with Tamaki"

**Word Count:** 183

**Characters:** Kyouya, Tamaki, mentions of others.

**Pairings:** Kyouya/Tamaki if you really, really squint.

**Rating:** PG.

**Spoilers:** None.

This was the very last time Renge's otaku desires would be gratified...there was absolutely no merit in such a situation. In fact, Kyouya decided that after this someone should _pay_ him for...such an...unsavory...display as he was currently being forced to witness.

If only Renge hadn't roused the rest of the customers and the twins hadn't slyly wheedled Tamaki out of his seat with Haruhi (Kyouya immediately decided to increase _her_ debt as, should Tamaki have gone with her, he would have been...spared) with the whispered promise that they would help lure her to a commoner's amusement park attraction called the "Tunnel of Love."

But, somehow he had gotten stuck in a confined space with Tamaki.

And, as he had noted on a previous occasion and _tragically_ forgotten at the point when such information would become useful...anything that went in circles for any sustained period of time upset the blond's stomach considerably.

Trying to ignore the retching sound in the corner of the ferris wheel's compartment, Kyouya drew out his notebook and increased the figures that comprised Haruhi's debt with each passing minute.

Romantic...indeed.

**Fin**

**Title:** The Greatest Pianist…?

**Genre:** Humor, From a prompt, "Tamaki, Mozart's Sonata for Two Pianos"

**Word Count:** 174

**Characters:** Tamaki, Haruhi, Hunny,

**Pairings:** None.

**Rating:** PG.

**Spoilers:** None.

Tamaki was such a phenomenal pianist that sometimes people professed that, in order to play such complicated rhythms with the tempo and precision that he did, he _must_ have an extra pair of hands somewhere...

Haruhi, listening to a performance that he was so engrossed in that he hadn't noticed anyone come in, simply shared this notion.

Suddenly, Hunny - with a look that didn't reflect his normal child-like appearance - was standing beside her, also observing.

Haruhi, calmed by the music, responded, "It's a nice song."

Hunny, that strange look still in his eyes, said, "Mozart, 'Sonata for Two Pianos' or, as it is sometimes called 'Sonata for Four Hands'.'"

Giving a start when she had finally processed what her diminutive senpai had said, exclaimed, "Four hands?!?"

Unable to ignore such an outburst, Tamaki stood and looked around the curtain, prompting Hunny to exclaim, "Tama-chan! You're such a great pianist!"

Haruhi, however, remained rooted to the spot and kept chanting, "He's an alien. He's an alien...with another set of hands...he's an alien."

**Fin**

**Title:** Who's Your Daddy?

**Genre:** Humor, From a prompt, "Kyouya/Haruhi/Tamaki, 'Are you my daddy?'"

**Word Count:** 338

**Characters:** Kyouya, Tamaki, Haruhi, Ranka and an OC.

**Pairings:** Kyouya/Haruhi/Tamaki.

**Rating:** PG-13.

**Spoilers:** None.

Fujioka Sayako may have heard words such as "unsavory" or "illicit" or "dirty" being applied to her mother, but if she did, she certainly never fell in her estimation.

And, knowing her mother, it was far more likely that the five year old merely explained the matter as one of preference to any naysayer, leaving them with a gaping mouth.

Indeed, Sayako had the sort of _unusual_ background that usually left people unacquainted with her strange disposition - one that might be said to be an occasionally calculated bluntness of manner colored by an overall positively frightful cheerfulness - utterly confused.

Although she no sur-name attached to a male identity, she never felt the need to ask the childish question, "Are you my daddy?" to any of the numbers of male visitors that her mother had on a regular basis.

She knew her fathers well.

One was infinitely more fun to play with, because he never had any scruples about mud, or finger paint, or piggyback rides, or such that the other had.

However, her other Daddy gave her the amusement of constantly trying (and usually succeeding) to wheedle things out of him, because she knew he tried to appear stingy on principle.

Her Mother loved both of them and her Grandparent (unusually conscious of such things, Sayako wasn't sure he wished to be called Grandma or Grandpa...so she usually just said "Ranka") referred to her daddies as "Sugar Daddy" and...always pausing at the other one, "That Idiot."

Although, when she had endearing addressed Tama-papa as "That Idiot" she found that he stole the corner she was accustomed to cry in...

It was good that Ranka liked Kyo-papa better in such family moments. Ranka was also angry at Tama-papa's occupation of that corner.

But that didn't matter. Sayako just thought she would be the envy of the school when she showed up with _two_ daddies and secretly thought that the rest of the world was positively _impoverished_ because it had only one.

**Fin**

**Title:** Ice Storm

**Genre:** Angst / Introspective, From a prompt, "Haruhi/Kaoru, ice storm"

**Word Count:** 225

**Characters:** Kaoru, Haruhi, Hikaru.

**Pairings:** Kaoru/Haruhi.

**Rating:** PG-13.

**Spoilers:** Spoilers for Manga 45.

Kaoru had decided then, and by small and increasing acts of sacrifice attempted to prove to himself, that he would never act on what he felt for Haruhi. Hikaru - who had been there even before he they were born - had to always come first.

But, he got caught up in something he couldn't control, couldn't repress and put down even for Hikaru's sake.

Before he even knew, he had asked her to dinner and she had accepted and there was no Hikaru in sight and no provision made for him. Kaoru barely knew what he was saying.

It seemed, after that moment when what he had tried so valiantly to contain and put to rest had rushed out in a flurry of unasked for words, his mouth worked on its own.

When Hikaru asked what his plans were, Kaoru lied.

He lied because he didn't want to see it.

When Hikaru learned, everything would break lose and be swept up in a kind of ice storm. Hikaru was innately fiery, and so when Kaoru imagined the consequences of his actions, he had to make his twin into something to alien to him, so cold and distant, that he did not know him.

Because, to end up not knowing Hikaru would probably be sufficient punishment for what he was doing now with Haruhi.

**Fin**

**Title:** Jealousy

**Genre:** Introspective, From a prompt, "Kyouya/Tamaki, something involving music"

**Word Count:** 120

**Characters:** Kyouya, Tamaki, mention of Suou Yuzuru.

**Pairings:** Kyouya/Tamaki, if you squint.

**Rating:** PG.

**Spoilers:** None.

There was something that Kyouya envied about Tamaki more than his position as only heir or parents who were indulgent - even if Suou Yuzuru expressed his paternal love sporadically and obtusely.

No.

Whenever Tamaki played piano, he infused the very air with something that Kyouya could only hope to see a glimpse of every once and a while in himself...

Tamaki, with just the simply percussive motion of tapping a finger upon an ivory key, wove so much undiluted _life_ into the world and through others that Kyouya could only hope that, in some deep place that had gone personally unobserved for years, he had one fraction of the unnamable quality.

It was a different sort of jealousy entirely.

**Fin**

**A/N:** Wow…that was a lot. Hope you enjoyed!


	14. Ramen Balm

**Title:** "One Boring Sunday" or "Ramen Balm"

**Genre:** Introspective

**Word Count:** 1,026

**Characters:** Tamaki, Random maids, mentions of the entire Host Club

**Pairings:** One-sided TamakixHaruhi.

**Rating:** PG

**Spoilers:** None.

**One Boring Sunday**

**or "Ramen Balm**

**For the lovely and talented bagsybabe **

**sciathan file**

Monday was never loathed, never dull, and always began with a flash, a sense of exuberance, and a small chance of sparkles.

Tuesday was always quieter, meant for meetings, planning, wild scheming and dreaming.

Wednesday never had the flounce and decadence of the rest of the week, but it still meant Darjeeling, French conversation, and heartfelt compliments.

Thursday – known as cosplay day - always made up for Wednesday's lack of pomp with new costumes, new roles, new flights of fancy and imaginative escapades.

Friday held the promise of weeks and days to come, and this always managed to tie him over despite, perhaps, a dearth of actual activity.

Saturday was for refinement – for Shima's etiquette lessons and visits to the Ootori compound, Mozart and Rachmaninoff, Beethoven and John Cage, French and English – for work and occasional visits to Kyouya.

Sunday – ah, Sunday! - was always boring.

Sunday was a day of family affairs.

And here, although Tamaki considered the Host Club to be his family, he decided that on this one day he must always give way to slightly more orthodox definitions.

The twins would discuss crepes and silks and Indian brocades and satins with their mother. Fuyumi-san would speak to Kyouya about something he already thought he knew better, but perhaps didn't. Mori and Hunny would spar together and with their younger siblings.

And Haruhi, well, she would –

Tamaki swatted the thought away with a gesture of frustration and annoyance. She had always made it quite plain that she would be angry with him if he intruded on her weekends as well as her weekdays without an excuse.

Sulkily, he decided that against his more noble inclinations, he had better comply.

But, he complied with so much muttering interspersed with gestures and shouts that bordered on being utterly nonsensical that he provided ample amusement for his entire household staff as he paced first through the foyer, followed by a spirited jaunt up the staircase, along an upstairs hall, and finally into his suite.

Finally Tamaki sat down on his bed and, noticing the crowd of maids behind him, made a vague wish for pork flavored commoner's ramen and a receptacle of hot water.

Then he was alone for a while.

To be honest, Tamaki hated Sunday the most. Not simply because it was boring (even though Kyouya would always quip something to the effect of "An idiot like you is, of course, in need of constant stimulation" whenever he brought the subject up), but because Sunday was painfully lonely.

Tamaki never outwardly expressed this to anyone besides some vague want of something to do, but on Sunday he always felt like something intrinsic – something that truly made the world glitter and gleam with a kind of hidden exuberance on every other day of the week – was always missing.

The maids brought the ramen bowl in and, sensing that their master would not indulge them in _their_ current collective mood, delivered it to him where he sat, deeply serious and pensive.

They left in a flurry of echoing rumor and speculation and Tamaki was again left to his solitude.

Normally ramen – not only because of its novelty but because of the feigned connections that he made to person who originally introduced it to him – would instantly be the balm to calm all of his own disquieting – even if slightly irrational - fears.

On every other day of the week someone else was around. So, even on the rare occasions that his boundless optimism faltered, Tamaki always found it in him to smile and go on, if not for his own sake, but for those of the people around him.

On Sunday, he never had to make such a show.

Waiting for the noodles to soften (he had been mistaken a few times, even though he had asked Haruhi to give him an extended lesson on how to make the tricky food…particularly how long he should have to _wait_), he sat and thought, raising the cheap wooden chopsticks that came with the ramen bowl to his mouth and staring at nowhere in particular.

Because, since Sunday was the only day of the week when his cobbled together family was dispersed, as he waited to eat his ramen, he used his imagination to conjure up a scene where they were all eating commoner's food together.

In his mind, Kyouya was examining his food with a kind of disdainful interest and calculating how such commodities were capable of turning a profit, as they did.

Mori was cautioning Hunny that it was still hot, while Hunny reported happily that Usa-chan also liked ramen, very much.

The twins – irritating and unsavory even in his imagination – were slurping the noodles noisily, commenting on how the food in some foreign country or another was far superior, and making lewd gestures with the noodles, by turns.

And, just like every Sunday, all the rest of the club members finished and left, leaving just Haruhi and him alone, half eaten bowls of pork ramen in between them.

At this thought – one he could never quite determine how the events in his mind had led to such an improper meeting - he would always hastily open the bowl and stuff some steaming noodles into his mouth, taking his burnt tongue as punishment for an emotion he could never name and never quite had the courage to sort out.

And with each passing bite, the disturbed voice in his head would grow quieter as he told himself that Haruhi held a special place simply because she was part of his family.

But, not even ramen could ever fully dull Sunday's ruminations and, whenever Tamaki pulled on his blue blazer in preparation for school on Monday, he always felt a thrill of exhilaration.

However, Tamaki being Tamaki, he always told himself that this was because Sunday was always boring and he had put another one behind him.

**Fin**

**A/N:** Because I wanted to explain the ramen picture with emo!Tamaki. Okay, I got nothin'. Ten points if you get the overly obscure music joke I made in this piece.

Anyways, hope you enjoy! Comments will, as usual, be given a personal response. 


End file.
